The woman she represents is emancipated, totally inhabited by fashion rather than simply dressed in it. Eternally preoccupied with equality and liberty,Sonia Rykiel continues to perfect, among other things, that which is unfinished. Nicknamed the “Queen of Knits”, she indeed manipulates the material like a champion. The “new Chanel”1, who is only ever fan of one cloth at a time, thinks of the means rather than the end. Rykiel fashion is acted out like a play. It’s both the story that unfolds through the garment and the heroine that the wearer incarnates. “Is designer Sonia Rykiel turning fashion upside down?”
The amplitude of her talent is measured in mesh. Rykiel wanted a sweater that was a pleasure to wear; a sweater in her exact measurements that, in line with her work requirements, would be able to travel with her seven times from Paris to Venice round-trip. Sonia never ceased to make corrections: hollowing out the sleeves, molding the arm, reducing the length of the bust to lengthen the legs… The piece became her second skin.
December 1963: Françoise Hardy poses in the striped sweater, on the glossy cover of Elle. The piece has been known as Rykiel’s signature ever since. In liberating herself from collars that suffocated the throat and allowed for zero expression, the French chanteuse was making a boldly casual statement; “Lady Hardy”‘s disobedience was nevertheless softened by the charm of the sweater’s child-like stripes. Wool would soon become the material du jour in Paris; at the same time, the stripes worked wonders in turning frowns upside down on the faces of Parisians and runway models alike. Mesh established itself as one of the major characteristics of Rykiel’s style from the get-go. The secret? Sleeves fitted high up on the shoulder. Rykiel’s allure would quickly become the flip-side of a new modernness, set in stone by the liberal movements of the 60s. Indeed, Paris was weary of overwrought fashions.
Her wardrobe sparks fads the world over. The preaching of her gospel arms the rebellious female thinker best incarnated by Sonia Rykiel herself. Indeed, it is this very creation, the striped sweater, originally envisioned for her own satisfaction, that would launch her entire vocation. Sonia Rykiel transforms her customers into freed women; her true power is in creating tools of fashion destined to become artifacts.2
1 Patricia McColl, “Rykiel. Queen of the Sweaters”, Women’s Daily, April 20, 1972.
2 Sonia Rykiel exposition, under the direction of Olivier Saillard, les Arts Décoratifs, Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Paris, 2008.
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